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Would be great if the temple court owners were able to acquire the little buildings in front of it on park row and knock them down - leaving a sort of public plaza and exposing the beauty of the temple court building to the entire city hall park area. They could even use the air rights from the small buildings to build something narrow and fitting adjacent to the taller park row building (#15 i think). The way it stands right now, with the entire side exposed, diminishes it i think.

I think it's more likely to happen almost the exact opposite of this. I imagine all of the Park Row buildings eventually being cobbled together, and then a large tower being built on the corner with a plaza abutting 15 Park Row. It maximizes the available window space on any possible tower here.

That does not seem to be the case from tax maps. Indeed, it looks like J&R might even own the hardware store, if you go digging. I think you'd need to do some serious assembling here, even if it was all from J&R. They don't seem to be the real estate types, so even if they did own all of it, moving everything out of those buildings definitely signals a willingness to move on selling them. The buildings are definitely under built. Even if they only got a far of 10 with a 20% plaza bonus, they could build pretty tall here. An office building gets a FAR of 15 plus bonuses, but it's also an office building downtown. Not good.

Would be great if the temple court owners were able to acquire the little buildings in front of it on park row and knock them down - leaving a sort of public plaza and exposing the beauty of the temple court building to the entire city hall park area. They could even use the air rights from the small buildings to build something narrow and fitting adjacent to the taller park row building (#15 i think). The way it stands right now, with the entire side exposed, diminishes it i think.

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I actually like the raw "ugliness" of Park Row Building's lot walls. While the main facade has all the expected, beautifully clumsy bells and whistles of a Beaux-Arts facade, its unadorned sides have an unintentionally minimalist, proto-Modernist look to their sheer verticality and rows of rectangular buildings. This 19th century office slab is a curious, futurist premonition of massive "cigarette box" office towers without adornment. Aside from well done Modernist masterpieces, many mid-century office towers use a fake "less is more" approach to justify cheapo design and construction. Park Row Building's lot walls use the same principle, but they don't even pretend to hide under some reductionist aesthetic. They get right to business.

Of course, while I see all of this when I look at the tower, others see a big, dirty brick wall that does absolutely nothing for the streetscape. To me, that would have been a fair argument for any other building, but not this 19th century two-faced Janus that tries so hard to connect with the past on its public face while being unintentionally and unabashedly functionalist on its supposed private sides. Where the building's awkward layout results in sharp angles, (e.g. some southern facades), the result can be almost Deconstructivist.

I would like to see much of that blight to the north of it either rehabilitated where feasible, or demolished outright, to be replaced with a worthy successor. Having said that, I wish they'd leave at least some freestanding exposure for that northern lot wall.

Being an electrician, I'm distracted by the cocaine spider web of temporary wiring strung around the place. I can even see on one of the lights where the black wire has come lose from its wire nut splice.

It probably meets the bare minimum of National Electrical Code article 590 (which allows for flying splices on construction sites), depending on your interpretation of "cables shall be supported in place at intervals that insure that they will be protected from physical damage."

Wouldn't it be great to be part of this renovation project in some way; be it electrician, plasterer, carpenter, ect. This building has almost a cult following like none other I can think of: take a look at the lovely photos on this blog - an be sure not to miss the video link at the bottom, it is quite well done.

Also, Here is a backtrack link to one of my favorite recent posts here on the WNY forum…http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showth...l=1#post431951
"A lot of us worried about what would happen to the building for years, but it is exciting to know that the interior will be restored as well," said committee member Corie Sharples. Or as chair Roger Byrom put it more succinctly, "This is terrific. Many terrible things could have happened."
—Eli Rosenberg

The new building behind on Nassau is matching the floor levels for the first 9 Floors. They're cutting through the lot wall & connecting the old and the new. They have two floors above street level completed now

This new tower will, thankfully, cover up the big blank wall of the Lara next door -- Lara's ugly butt end is very visible looking downtown from my neighborhood. It seems likely that this new Temple Court tower will have windows on the north facade, since it's linked to the old Temple Court building.

The latest 5 Beekman DOB Zoning Documents, the Zoning Diagram dated 06/18/14, show the envelope of the building but no facade details. However, what is seen are two pyramidal crowns atop the north side of the tower, mimicking the originals down lower at 5 Beekman